So Equitorial Guinea has a constitutional referendum – basically to let dictator Obiang’s son become Vice President. Armed militia present IN the polling stations. Result? 99.4% in favour. Um. Okay. Because that 0.6% against is really going to make it look less rigged? Since he’s now top of the list as Africa’s longest serving dictator, you’d think he’d know better by now not to make it so obvious.

Please take a moment to read this heart-felt letter from Jenni Williams, National Coordinator for Women of Zimbabwe Arise, in which she shares sobering information about conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons.

My name is Jenni Williams, national coordinator of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA). I am persecuted for being a human rights defender, just getting over my 39th arrest and recovering from my 3rd stint in a Zimbabwean jail as a unconvicted prisoner. Arrested on the 21st of September World Peace Day, I spent 2 days in horrific conditions at Bulawayo Central Police and then 10 days at Mlondolozi female prison in Khami complex. This brings my tally to 73 days of my life spent in jails wearing the bright green dolly rocker tunic of a remand prisoner. Despite so many arrests, the state has been unable to criminalise my right to peaceful protest so they through a particular officer with personal grudges have now resorted to criminal charges of kidnapping and theft. Anyway that is just a bit of background, the real reason I write this is to make a heartfelt plea to Zimbabweans.

In Zimbabwean jails, you have nothing to do except watch and SEE what happens and to talk to other prisoners. Life in prison is dreary, many nights spent on hard floors, dirty blankets, stinking cells, long hours (16hours) of lock down in small overcrowded cells can surely drive one up the wall. I slept next to murderers, car jackers, thieves , fraudsters, prostitutes, all of them human beings trying to survive. I was not there to judge them but to share in the battle to eke out some form of dignity for oneself and avoid being harassed or beaten or tortured by prison guards. Counting the hours and days in your head or watching how the shadows change as the sun sets as you are not allowed to know the time becomes a favourite past time of many. A prison is supposed to be a place for correction and reform , but Zimbabwe’s prisons become places of slow death and places where one’s dignity and self esteem are stripped. I have seen none of the correction and reform except forced labour or nonsensical things like the daily watering down to clean the 12×25 meter concrete yard.

During 2008, time in prison was hell as there was such widespread hunger and skeletons habited most of Zimbabwe’s jails. Things have improved somehow in terms of supply of food in Mlondolozi but I am afraid to say the food is badly cooked and hungry eyes tell the stomach that it cannot finish the meal served on plastic plates as it is so unappetising. Sadza and spinach is such a simple meal to prepare if cooked in clean pots with clean water and with care but both are lacking at Mlondolozi. The sadza of an indescribable colour with relish of either spinach drowning in it water and not a drop of oil or beans swimming in an Olympic pool of liquid are the 11:30 lunch and 3pm dinner menu. Porridge too is a burden to eat as it is cooked in yesterday’s unwashed pots and 20% of inmates have that magic item called a spoon. Those with the other scare item called a toothbrush use one side for brushing and another for dribbling porridge into their mouths. And so I learn that eating is half hunger and a whole lot to do with how appetising the food is, the result, inmates don’t get their basic right to a decent cooked nutritious meal. Due to my friends and relatives I am able to get a meal and something for breakfast delivered to me daily but as before I find I cannot eat in those conditions and lost 4kgs despite spending most of the day sitting in the tiny yard. One appetite killer is the thought that someone in the cells who does not have relatives to visit and cannot stomach prison food will go for days without a morsel. My colleague Magodonga spent many meal times urging me to eat so I could take my antibiotics to treat the infection of my recent surgery. There was no bathing or shower facilities in Hotel Central Police station and my pleas for clean water for me to cleaning my wounds for 3 days fell on deaf ears, it was if I was asking for a rock from the moon. By the grace of God the antibiotics worked, and the infection has cleared.

I have three things to ask of anyone reading this note but I am no expert but just sharing based on experience. Firstly talking to convicted prisoners, it becomes so clear that that people can be too trusting and this sets them up for a fall. Please take time to study and analyse people and take more seriously advice on how to prevent crime or carjacking. Don’t leave your keys in the ignition and step out. Don’t trust strangers no matter the gender, smile or eloquence. I am not saying go through life being suspicious and lose confidence in the basic good of a human but take the time to THINK before you act. This will and can save you from injury, harm death and or even losing your property.

Following on from the basic good point, some of the crimes that resulted in prisoners being given the yellow dress of a convicted person could have been solved by facilitated dialogue processes. Again, I ask us to think and try to find other ways than to send someone to a prison that cannot feed them in a country that will not reform or correct them. Instead of prisoners coming out as reformed members of society they re-enter society as hardened criminals with little hope of being reformed. I am also talking to employers of domestic staff. The police and justice systems in our country are not working as they should so in the meantime society must find another way to peacefully deal with crime that involves genuine reform and correction and restitution. By the way I have had lots stolen from me and many break ins but because of who I am, I am deprived of my right to walk into a police station and report a crime as it has resulted in my personal persecution for my human rights work.

If you have a relative in jail, please visit them, they need to see you even if you have nothing to give except your smile and a teaspoon or an empty container to use as a lunch box! If you can donate food or practical things to Mlondolozi for the 100 women there, please do so but make sure there is a record of the donation or demand to give it to a prisoner direct or through charitable organisations. Send body cream but not face cream. Don’t send deodorant or things that women like to use to make themselves pretty and feminine because for strange undisclosed reasons feeling feminine is not allowed. During my stints I normally coped by reading magazines or short simple romance novels and prisoners and guards alike had always loaned these books to read so it is something that you can do to help pass the day or night, while waiting for Zimbabwe’s slow wheels of justice to take their course.

May I take this opportunity to thank the many whom I know had me and my colleague in their prayers.

God bless Jenni

Action:

Support Mlondolozi Prison. Contact them directly on +263-9-64228

Or send your support via Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO):
Stand No 12922 Ndhlela Way, Mbare, Harare
+263-4-780401/3, 770046
+263-772-485851, 77212177, +263-773-133673
elisha@zacro.org.zw, edson@zacro.org.zw, zacrehab@mweb.co.zw

The first lucky winners of our glow in the dark love dice have been contacted and are getting their prizes.

Feedback from recipients so far includes:

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Phone +263 774 186284-7, and listen to Big Dhara Going Down. Leave us a message to tell you what you thought, and you could win your own set of dice. Charge ‘em up. And let ‘em roll.

In an ironic twist in the Gwisai case, the state’s key witness has been exposed as a fake – thanks in part to his Facebook profile.

This story made my night yesterday. I mean surely Rule #1 for a prospective undercover agent: Don’t develop social networking profiles with your real name. And certainly don’t use a picture of yourself!

With Mining Minister Mpofu boasting about the US$2bn in diamond revenue to be coming Zimbabwe’s way, the Committee for the People’s Charter issued their suggested priorities for this income.

We shared this with our subscribers, and some of them replied with their other top issues to be funded.

Note how ZESA tops the list for many – even before today’s electricity outage.

Fertilizer must be subsidized and Tokwe Mkosi dam must be completed

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I am not sure whether it was by design or error that you left out the emotive issue of electricity on your list of priority areas when most people are affected on a daily basis and we cannot sue ZESA for damage to electrical appliances caused by power outages. Government could also do well to establish a benefit fund for the disabled and dualise the Harare-Mutare highway.

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The need to regularize the hap hazard agric in farms that are producing below or nothing. Proceeds from diamonds can be channeled to enhance our agriculture by way of making the land allocation transparency and supporting the farmers to grow what is important and relevant than what fetches $ in the international market. Equitable distribution of these resources in the entire region is also important.

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Priority 8 – Subsidizing/make affordable rural electricity bill rates for rural institutions/entities such as rural shops which are billed commercial rates same as OK /TM supermarkets. Whereas rural businesses only generate income once a year on Christmas Day!

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One cannot underestimate the need for effective checks and balances when it come to the whole process of Diamond mining, processing, selling and accounting for the proceeds. Loose ends will breed chances of funds misappropriation. On the dualisation of roads, I suggest that the other major roads should be dualised  for at least up to twenty kilometers  from the city centre in order to enable free flow of vehicle in and out of the city centre.

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Please add item no.8 as follows: Electricity generation (Whether Zesa re-capitalization or new players) We cannot carry on like this.

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Yes more MUST go into education. School fees are preposterous. No normal person can afford them only the CROOKS. Also how much longer must we put up with credits and vouchers in supermarkets for change. It is an infringement of all human rights. Why don’t we all get up and protest! What is wrong with us. The day of reckoning must come soon.

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Yes! Thank you so much for outlining the recommendations which government should follow in as far as the distribution of wealth derived from natural resources is concerned, especially the controversial Marange diamonds. It is my understanding that youths from within & surrounding areas are not being considered for employment because they are MDC – by virtue of that area being an MDC strong-hold and that is most unfortunate and unfair.  I recommend that CPC look into that as well and there must be a total redress to the issue.

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They must also use the money to boost public busses (zupco) and we also ZBC to improve its standards for televisions since more than 60% of  country hav poor signals and the second tv is only for Harare. And th government must also improve the minimum wages to a better level.

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A fraction should be directed towards improvement of civil service salaries and working conditions.

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Other budget considerations for Minister Biti for 2012 Financial year

1. Bulawayo-kezi-Mpoengs Border Road  and Maphisa-Tshelanyemba-Mambale border roads need upgrading (all weather road)

2. Bulawayo-Nkayi  and Nkayi Lupane-Tsholotsho roads to be upgraded as a matter of agency

3. Re-building of the National Herd (livestock-cattle and goats)

4. Water source development, at least 2 big dams per district in agro-ecological region 5 and accompanying irrigation systems to improve food security

5. Methane gas and related industrial development in Lupane (Mat North)

6. All our roads used to be protected from stray animals, all the fence along roads disappeared during the land reform exercise, I think we need that fence back as a matter of agency to protect both our farmers and motorists (cross country activity)

7. With the climate change issues taking centre stage- there has to investment in that direction in addition to pasture land resuscitation and general environmental management

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I see all these stories in diamonds etc as a layman who has an interest in mining why is there no pressure on the platinum companies. they are making more money than the diamonds the diamonds in marange are alluvial at best conglomerates and not kimberlites so they wont last long.

But the Platinum deposits should be our saviour as a country we know only 5 companies in the world can set up a platinum mining operation but with our deposits and the companies operating them should we not be able to benefit as a nation from that.

Imagine if just the money generated from Platinum mining just goes through our banking system the difference that it will make to our economy right now there is no evidence that we have two big Platinum projects in Zimbabwe.

I am not partisan just a Zimbabwean who is watching from the sidelines. The Platinum and gold deposits are more sustainable. we must ask ourselves why we have dropped out of the top ten gold producers in Africa yet in the 90′s we were number 3 in Africa. On another note why give our iron ore deposits to a company that is just going to shift the iron ore out and process elsewhere we really need to look at all our minerals there, also chrome etc

It is sad that so much attention is focused on diamonds and as civil society people should cover all aspects of mining and see how zim can be helped.

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While I think that the 7 priorities for diamond revenue are very important, there is one glaring omission…the environment. This revenue is from mining, which wreaks havoc on sensitive natural ecosystems and only provides immediate benefits to humans as laid out in the list of priorities. This is somewhat short-sighted and unsustainable, as if we continue to take from the earth without giving back and caring for our natural resources – water, wildlife, trees and soil – we will end up in a much worse situation. So I think another priority should be something like “The restoration of the environment in all areas damaged by mining activities including tree planting and cleaning up toxic waste from mining, together with refurbishment of all National Parks and wilderness areas and investment in anti-poaching and community programs such as CAMPFIRE.” Without give and take, no system survives for very long.

Traffic across Harare was worse this morning thanks to a city-wide power outage, and it sounds like must of the rest of the country would have also been affected.

The statement issued this morning by the Chairman of the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) helps to explain:

Dear Stakeholder/Customer

It is with regret that I advise of the sudden “shut down”" of both our major sources of generation at 0625 hours this morning (Wednesday 9th November 2011).

This was caused by a major system disturbance (system instability) on the transmission network. Early indications are that this disturbance originated from the transmission line from Mozambique. It would appear that this was a severe shock as it also impacted on the Kariba North Bank station (Zambia)

When the stations are subjected to these exogenous shocks the first step is to look for collateral damage before sequentially bringing units back on line.

It its hoped that units at Kariba can be brought back over the next 24 hours. Hwange takes a  few days and this period may have  be extended due scarcity of diesel in the country.

Thank you

R. Maasdorp
Chairman ZPC

Note: Update from ZPC Chairman 2pm 9 Nov 2011 – Kariba has all units back on the grid – record time, well done to the team there. Hwange now ready to bring the first unit back.